


We Could Bathe In All The Lights

by Violetcarson



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/F, Fem!Yuuri, Femslash, Victoriya Nikiforova, always female victor nikiforov, always female yuuri katsuki, fem!Victor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 17:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11559684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetcarson/pseuds/Violetcarson
Summary: No matter what else changes, they're inevitable.An AU in which Viktoriya Nikiforova is the world champion of ladies figure skating, and Yuuri Katsuki strives for the chance to compete against her idol. We examine the ways the story is different, and the way some things never change. Victuuri femslash AU. Written for the Victuuri Reverse Bang, with art by Sapphicmodernity.





	We Could Bathe In All The Lights

**Author's Note:**

> I am so excited to finally be posting this fic! I've wanted to write a femslash AU for months, and when I saw the absolutely outstanding art by [sapphicmodernity](http://sapphicmodernity.tumblr.com/), I couldn't pass up the chance. A massive thanks to my fantastic artist for putting up with my nonsense. Also huge thanks to my wonderful beta, [Emma](http://thefutureisyellow.tumblr.com/). And thank you to the mod for doing so much work for this bang. 
> 
> An imgur gallery with the art can be found [here](http://imgur.com/a/RJcnB).
> 
> One quick note. Some of this story deals with sexism in the figure skating world. Of course, in our reality, ladies figure skating is generally much more popular than men's figure skating, but in the world of Yuri!!! On Ice, the ladies were greatly overshadowed by the men. So perhaps take this more as a commentary on that world, than on how figure skating works in our own. 
> 
> The title is from "In the Name of Love" be Bebe Rexha and Martin Garrix, which is my favorite Victuuri song.
> 
> Enjoy.

 

** **

 

** Viktoriya Nikiforova: The Next Skater To Beat? Russian Prodigy Wows at Junior Grand Prix Finals. **

 

“That’s her, Yuuri, look!” Yuuko forgets to whisper, her voice jarringly loud in the silence of the sleeping house. Yuuri winces, thinks of Yuuko’s parents, asleep just down a hallway, and doesn’t speak.

Yuuko’s hand grabs at Yuuri’s chin, gently turning her back to face the screen. Yuuri feels heat spring up in her cheeks.

“Look,” Yuuko says again, “they’re asleep, don’t worry.” Her breath tickles Yuuri’s ear. Yuuri looks.

A girl is skating. Her hair, such a light shade it almost looks silver, fans around her as she pulls into a tight corkscrew spin. She glides out of the spin, reaches a palm up like she’s grasping the sky, and then she’s off. She darts around the rink, light reflecting off the blades of her skates. She’s so graceful it looks more like dancing than skating as she drifts across the ice.

Yuuko giggles, throws an arm around Yuuri. “See? I told you it was worth staying up for this! I bet Viktoriya wins. She’s so good. I wish I could skate like that.”

Yuuri tears her eyes away, turning them on Yuuko. She’s completely focused on the screen, smiling bright as the sun. One of her cheeks has a dimple. Yuuko’s arm is still around her shoulders, and Yuuri is intensely aware of the contact. “Yeah,” she says. “Me too.”

Yuuri turns away, back to the vision of a skater. Viktoriya Nikiforova glides to a graceful stop at center ice, arms raised, face upturned, expression wistful. As she holds the pose, the audience erupts into applause, tinny through the speaker, and Yuuko lets out a quickly stifled cheer.

Viktoriya relaxes out of the pose, acknowledges the cheers with a gentle smile. She turns to bow to each area of the audience in turn, the picture of poise.

Yuuri is used to watching skaters celebrate after finishing their performance, especially when they nail it the way Viktoriya had. Often there are tears, sometimes they collapse to the ice, overwhelmed by what they’ve just done. But Viktoriya looks as relaxed as if she’d simply walked through a door.

 

**Viktoriya Nikiforova Defies Tradition. Is The Prodigy’s Reign Bound For An Early End?**

 

“You are jeopardizing your career Vikochka! Your sponsors are already concerned about your long term prospects. You don’t need to give them more reason to doubt you!”

Viktoriya unlaces her boot slowly, trying not to jar her ankle. The medic crouched in front of her is trying to ignore Yakov’s tirade behind her, but her eyes flicker up to meet Viktoriya’s in a silent question. Viktoriya looks back down at her boot. “They’re just trousers.”

“What?” he asks, voice sharp and jagged as broken glass. “This isn’t about your costume, though that doesn’t help. The trousers and the black boots and cutting your hair off were bad enough, but this? You could have broken your leg, you idiot girl!”

The medic helps ease the boot off her foot and inspects the damage. She mutters a curse under her breath. “This needs to be x-rayed. I’ll see about transportation to the hospital,” she says, throwing Viktoriya a tight smile.

She’s not very good at faking her expressions, Viktoriya thinks to herself. But not everyone has that much time to practice.

“Vikochka,” Yakov says again, and all the fight seems to have gone out of him. She keeps her gaze down, examining the bruising creeping up her calf. It’s easier to deal with Yakov when he’s shouting. “Why did you try it? We’ve had this conversation before. You know it’s not going to work.”

Viktoriya wiggles her toes. “It could have. I still think I can do it.”

“Yakov sighs. “If any girl could pull off a quad in competition, I have no doubt you would be the first. But this isn’t worth it. It’s not worth your health, especially at 17. You don’t have to push every possible limit to succeed.”

On the ice, practice has resumed for the rest of the rink. Evgeni is there, talking with one of the junior men. He laughs at something the kid says and takes off, gliding backwards at first. He gathers speed, setting up for a jumping pass. His toe pick sinks in, and he takes off into a picture perfect quadruple salchow. He lands, and the junior whoops, immediately skating forward to ask another question.

Viktoriya turns back to Yakov, smiling mask firmly in place. “I know, Coach Yakov. I’ll be more careful.”

He grunts in response, paces away to find the medic.

Viktoriya carefully unlaces her other boot.

 

**Making History: Reigning Olympic Gold Medalist Viktoriya Nikiforova Comes Out.**

 

The studio door slams behind her. Yuuri pulls off her coat and throws it at the wall. It misses the hook and slides to the floor with a wet plop. Yuuri scowls and hangs it up.

“Whoa there, where’s the fire, Yuuri?” Minako is leaning against the doorway to the locker rooms, still wearing sweatpants over her tights. “You’re half an hour early for class.”

Heat rushes into Yuuri’s cheeks and she stares at the floor, watching the snow she’d tracked in melt into a puddle around her. “I left early so I thought I’d just come here.”

Minako sighs. “Come sit down. And try not to get snow everywhere.” She gestures to a couch shoved against the wall where parents usually wait to pick their kids up after class. Yuuri drags her feet over to it and sits down. Minako sinks onto the couch beside her, immediately propping her feet up on the armrest. “Alright kid, spill. What happened?”

Yuuri fiddles with the straps of her backpack. “Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that. You haven’t been able to lie to me since you were 9.”

Yuuri shrugs. “I just…”

“You just?” Minako prompts.

“I don’t know, it’s just that Takeshi and Yuuko aren’t very fun to hang out with any more, now that they’re dating. They’re all over each other all the time, and they don’t pay attention to anything else. It’s boring.”

“So you’re third wheeling now?”

Yuuri shoots her a glare. “Yeah, I guess.”

Minako crosses her arms behind her head, looking up at the ceiling. “Well, in my experience, new couples are never very fun to spend time with.” She glances back at Yuuri, a calculating look in her eyes. “When I was around your age, there was this boy I had a bit of a crush on, and he started dating one of my best friends. I didn’t really see them for months.”

Yuuri avoids her gaze, swallows a sudden lump in her throat. “Yeah? That sounds hard.”

“Oh it was,” Minako says. “But eventually I got over it and they started remembering other people again. It was alright in the end.”

Yuuri doesn’t respond, and the silence stretches between them.

The door opens again. Another of Minako’s advanced students walks in, and Minako rolls up onto her feet to greet her. She pauses for a moment, turning back to Yuuri. “Look, I know it’s hard, but you’ll get through this. And for what it’s worth? I think that Takeshi kid is kind of a jerk.”

Yuuri stays sitting until she and the other student leave, heading into the locker rooms, staring at her hands. Her fingernails are ragged, chewed down to the quick. Minako was at least a little bit right. Takeshi was a bit of a jerk, even still. They’d always butted heads. But Yuuko was supposed to be her friend. Yuuko was supposed to be there for her.

She stands up, goes to change. Minako didn’t know everything, and she definitely didn’t know this.

 

** Two-Time Olympic Gold Medalist Viktoriya Nikiforova Stumbles Through The Early Season. Will This Season Be Her Last? **

 

“Have you met him yet?” Mila asks, toweling off her hair.

Viktoriya is already dressed, waiting for Mila to finish up so they can go get lunch. “Met who?”

“The new kid. The junior from Moscow that Yakov just brought on.”

Viktoriya frowns in thought. “Plisetsky?” she asks

“Yeah,” Mila’s voice is muffled as she pulls on her shirt. “He moved last week. Should be at the rink tomorrow.”

“No I haven’t met him. Have you?” Viktoriya carefully checks over her skates again, making sure the blades are fully dry.

“No,” Mila says, dropping onto the bench next to her. “But everyone won’t shut up about him. Georgi was in near hysterics last night cause some commentator was apparently speculating that he’s gonna be the next big thing by the time he makes it to seniors.”

Viktoriya frowns. “Isn’t he like 13? That’s a bit premature.”

“I know!” Mila groans. “It’s ridiculous! They can’t preemptively declare him ‘Russia’s Top Skater’ yet. He’s barely started competing internationally.”

“I mean,” Viktoriya says slowly, “I guess it does make sense that they’re looking for new prospects. Georgi has been so inconsistent lately, and Evgeni is retired on everything but paper. There’s a bit of a void to fill there.”

Mila snorts. “Yeah I know. It’s just,” she pauses, clearly frustrated. “We’re here too, ya know? It would just be nice if it wasn’t assumed that the next star has to come from the men’s field. I mean, I know that wouldn’t be me anyway, but still.”

Viktoriya nods absently, not speaking. She knows that some of the bitterness in Mila’s voice is her fault, and there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s kept all the other Russian ladies from the top spot for years, and most of the rest of the world as well.

Viktoriya thinks about her collection of gold medals from two Olympics and three World Championships.

The last time she was interviewed, they asked about her diet plan.

Neither of them have much to say after that.

 

** Viktoriya Nikiforova Spotted Out And About with KHL Captain Sergeyevich. New Love For Ice Royalty? **

 

“Makkachin,” Viktoriya says. “Please move over.”

Makkachin’s tail thumps against her leg, and he raises his head to look at her.

She wiggles her toes, jostling him. “Get up, Makka.”

Makkachin sighs and heaves himself to his feet and off of hers. He jumps up on the couch beside her and lays back down, head flopping down across her lap.

“Well, I guess that does count,” she says and gives his ears a scratch.

She grabs the bottle of Arnica oil from where she’d left it on her coffee table and pops the lid. The liquid is cool in her palms, as she begins to rub it into the healing bruise on her knee. She examines her feet critically, eyeing the patches of inflamed red skin and collection of calluses and blisters, and goes to the kitchen for some ice packs.

She flips idly through her phone while she ices her legs and feet, snorting when her twitter mentions contain a headline suggesting she went to a ballet with Boris over the weekend. She hasn’t seen him at all since the Olympic village, when he got drunk and followed her through three different bars, slurring and complimenting her legs the whole time.

She’s tried to be as out and proud as she can for years, but the memory of the media is short and blind to facts it finds inconvenient.

When her skin can’t take the cold for another moment, she pulls the ice packs off. Some of the swelling has gone down, and her lower legs aren’t aching as much.

Maybe it’s worth it to try and actually stretch. She runs through a couple sequences, warming up her chilled leg muscles, and sinks into a straddle split. She makes it to the floor, but it pulls more than usual. She frowns, trying to extend even farther, and her muscles refuse to co-operate. She holds the position anyway, growing more uncomfortable by the second. After a minute, she eases out of the position and tucks her legs underneath her.

This isn’t the first time she’s noticed. Day by day, injury by injury, she’s losing some of her flexibility. When she falls, it takes just a moment longer to pull herself back to her feet. The shooting pains through her shins and ankles get harder and harder to ignore at night.

When she was a junior, she’d earned so much of her reputation through her spiral sequences. She’s always had the best extension, the cleanest lines.

But she’s 27 now, and try as she might, she can’t control her body quite the way she used to.

She forces herself to keep stretching.

 

** Katsuki Defeated: Japan’s New Hopeful Bombs At First Grand Prix Final **

 

Yuuri is having a shit day. Celestino is nowhere to be found, probably off trying to assure her remaining sponsors that this competition’s results are a total fluke, and she’s still worth backing. Fuck Celestino anyway. She goes to get another drink.

And another.

And another.

Around the fifth glass of champagne, everything takes on this hazy glow and she can’t stop smiling. She smiles at the girl sitting next to her, trying to pay attention to what she’s saying. Something about her brother? Or is it her boyfriend? Who knows. The strap of her dress slides down her shoulder and she spends a good twenty seconds trying to pull it back into place.

Then Yuuri realizes Viktoriya Nikiforova is standing on the other side of the room, and everything stops.

“Um, are you okay?” the girl asks. Why can’t Yuuri remember her name? This girl was one of the people who kicked her ass in the free skate, Yuuri should definitely know her name.

“Yeah,” Yuuri breathes, not looking at her. “Is that,” her voice drops to a whisper, “is that Viktoriya Nikiforova?”

The girl—something with an S maybe—turns to look, and giggles. There are at least three empty glasses of champagne on the table in front of her as well. “Oh it is! Have you had time to actually meet her yet? She’s so sweet, I just adore her.”

“Meet her?” Yuuri asks, and promptly chokes on her champagne and starts coughing. “Nope,” she wheezes.

“Oh my gosh, you should go say hello! You have to introduce yourself.”

Yuuri looks at the girl, whose name definitely start with an S, and downs the rest of her champagne like a shot. “You are so right.”

She stumbles slightly as she stands and frowns at her shoes. The heels are stupid and too tall and she never wears heels except for events like these. She bends over to pull them off and deposits them in the girl’s lap.

“Sara!” Yuuri says suddenly, remembering. She absently pulls the fallen strap back up onto her shoulder again.

“Yes?” Sara asks, looking confused.

“Um,” Yuuri pauses to think. “You’re great. You did…great.”

Sara beams at her. “You too!” she says, holding Yuuri’s shoes.

Yuuri doesn’t have much of a plan when she strides across the room. She tries to think of one, but thinking is pretty complicated right now, so she decides to wing it.

She walks directly through the dance floor, bumping into a couple of people and ignoring their confused questions, and comes to a stop in front of Viktoriya Nikiforova, standing with a group of other skaters that Yuuri has never met in person.

“Hello,” she says, and sticks out her hand.

Viktoriya is smiling slightly, expression composed and perfectly polite. “Hello,” she says, holding out her hand. “Katsuki, right?”

“Yuuri please.” Here’s the part where Yuuri always imagined she’d tell Viktoriya what an inspiration she’s always been, how her skating changed Yuuri’s entire life, how much she’s always wanted to meet her.

But what comes out instead is, “Wanna dance?”

Viktoriya stares at her. The other three skaters, whom Yuuri had ignored, also stare at her.

Yuuri once again pulls up her errant shoulder strap in the silence.

“Um, yes. I could dance,” Viktoriya says, but she still seems hesitant about it.

“Great!” Yuuri beams at her, and Viktoriya smiles tentatively back.

She grabs Viktoriya’s hand, and the skin there is incredibly soft. She decides that Viktoriya needs to know this. “Oh wow, your skin is so soft. Also your hair looks amazing. And I love your dress, like really, great dress. And your accent sounds so sophisticated!” She walks backwards toward the dance floor as she speaks, pulling Viktoriya with her as she goes.

Red creeps farther up Viktoriya’s neck and face with every word. “Oh, well, thank you.”

“Come on,” she says. “I’ll lead,” and drops her right hand to Viktoriya’s waist, pulling her in closer.

 

** End of the Line: World Champion Nikiforova Throws Away Her Career and Reputation **

 

“Vikochka, think about what you’re doing.” Yakov’s shouting is beginning to attract attention from other people in the airport. Viktoriya ignores the confused staring.

“I did think about it,” Viktoriya says cheerfully, strolling through the crowd towards the ticket counter. Yakov grabs her arm. She tries to shake him off, but he plants himself and refuses to budge. She turns to face him. “Yes? What is it?”

He doesn’t speak, frowning at her like if he stares long enough he’ll finally figure her out. It’s an expression she’s familiar with, from the time when she cut off all of her in between programs at a competition.

She knows, on some level, that he’s just worried about her. He’s concerned about her career of course, but he’s been her coach for too long for her to doubt that he does care about her. His exasperated anger and gruff dismissal has always been the way he covered up his fear.

“Yakov,” she says gently, turning to face him fully. “This is a good thing. I need to do this.” She smiles brightly. “And besides, how hard can coaching be? I learned from the best.”

“You ungrateful child!” He scowls at her, ready to continue his tirade. She ignores him and pulls him into a quick hug, planting a kiss on his cheek.

“I’ll see you later! Don’t let Yuri do anything stupid.” She twirls away, trench coat flaring around her knees as she does. The nervous joy bubbles up inside her and she skips a couple of steps on her way to the ticket counter.

“Viktoriya!” Yakov shouts behind her.

She glances over her shoulder at him.

“Be careful,” he says, looking more defeated than she’s ever seen him.

“Of course!” She blows him a kiss. “When am I not?”

 

** Has Viktoriya Nikiforova Finally Snapped? After Skating Superstar Abandons Career, A Close Friend Reveals All On Her Dark Past **

 

Yuuri is completely losing her mind.

She’s always had trouble sleeping, but now she wakes up at the slightest noise in the night. She’s tired all the time, she never feels like she knows what’s happening, she feels paranoid and has to look around every corner before she walks into a room. Even eating breakfast is difficult, because she has to be on her guard at every moment, just in case.

“Yuuri!”

Yuuri flinches, water sloshing out of her glass and all down her front. She hurriedly sets the glass down, bracing for impact.

Viktoriya naturally commands attention any time she enters a room. She’s almost painfully pretty, confident, and outspoken. She’s spent the past week charming every person she meets, especially Yuuri’s family members. She’s always smiling, always moving, always happy to chat with anyone she meets.

This would all have been hard enough for Yuuri to deal with, if she didn’t also insist on _touching_ Yuuri at every available opportunity. Like right now.

“Yuuri!” Viktoriya says again, smiling bright as the sun, and slides her arm around Yuuri’s waist as she sits down. “Good morning!” She squeezes Yuuri’s hip in gentle greeting. Yuuri can feel her heart begin to race. When she pulls away, she rests her hand on Yuuri’s cheek instead, gently turning Yuuri to face her. “Oh, you have such huge bags under your eyes. Did you sleep alright last night?”

A large part of Yuuri wants to lean into the contact, and the rest of her wants her to run away screaming, so she makes the best of both worlds and freezes in panic. “Y-Yes.”

Viktoriya tuts at her. “Well I hope so. I can’t have my star skater not taking care of herself this early in training. Sleep is so important you know.” She brushes a loose stand of hair back from Yuuri’s face absently before turning back to the table. Her knee is pressing against Yuuri’s under the table. Yuuri thinks she might be having a heart attack.

"I was thinking that we should head to Minako’s studio this morning. I’d like to meet her more formally and get some input from her on the choreography.” More formally than their first meeting. Minako had stormed into the Katsuki living room and pointed accusatorially at Viktoriya, yelling, ‘You!’

“She’s much more familiar with your strengths. And who knows,” Viktoriya nudges her shoulder, smiling like they’re sharing a longstanding joke between them. “Maybe you can even give me a ballet lesson. I was never as good at ballet as Yakov would have liked, much to his and his ex-wife’s despair. I don’t think you’ve met Lilia. I’ll have to introduce you two if we’re ever in Russia for a competition. You’ll love her, I’m sure of it.”

Yuuri has discovered over the course of the week, to her confused shock, that Viktoriya is excellent at rambling, at length, on almost any subject. This is fine of course. What is not fine is that Viktoriya is also excellent at losing almost all of her clothing at a moment’s notice. Every time Yuuri works on calisthenics, Viktoriya decides to join her, immediately stripping down to a sports bra and the shortest shorts that Yuuri has ever seen in her life. If Viktoriya manages to keep her clothing on for any length of time, she always wears shirts just large enough that they’re constantly falling off her shoulder, and Yuuri has, as a result, spent a distressing amount of time staring at Viktoriya’s collarbones and the soft curve of her neck. Every evening, Viktoriya insists they spend at least half an hour in the hot spring together. Ostensibly this is so they can discuss Yuuri’s training, but it usually turns into a never ending game of one-sided Twenty Questions and Viktoriya offering to give Yuuri a calf massage. Yuuri has managed to refuse so far, but she knows she won’t be able to come up with denials for much longer.

All of this, of course, must be totally innocuous. Yuuri is just reading too much into the situation. There’s no way that Viktoriya has been doing all of these things with the intention of making Yuuri actually lose her mind. But she’s also definitely one hundred percent not doing any of it to _flirt_ , no matter what Yuuri’s frantically beating heart keeps insisting. There’s not a single chance that Viktoriya is interested in her in anything except a professional context. Which is what Yuuri repeats to herself on a loop after Viktoriya tries to initiate a “sleepover” wearing nothing but a silk negligee.

Everything is fine.

“Yuuri, are you listening to me?” Viktoriya never just says her name. She always seems to sing it, and Yuuri’s cheeks erupt into a fiery blush every time. “You can’t just ignore your coach,” she says, leaning into Yuuri, staring at her with the saddest puppy dog eyes.

Yuuri swallows and rips her gaze away from Viktoriya’s lips.

“Nope,” she says, reaching determinedly for her cup. “I am definitely not ignoring you.”

 

** Friendship On Ice; Close Pals Katsuki and Nikiforova Embrace After Emotional Performance **

 

“Yuuri!” Viktoriya sails into the room, voice a shrill wail, brandishing Yuuri’s laptop. Makkachin trots in behind her.

“Why do you have my computer?” Yuuri asks, not looking away from the duffel bag she’s unpacking. She puts a hand down at her side for Makkachin to push his head into and scratches one of his ears.

Viktoriya grabs her shoulder and pulls her around, gesturing wildly with laptop. “Look at this!” she insists.

Yuuri takes the computer from her before she can drop it and sits down on the bed. She reads the headline of the article and turns back to Viktoriya, nonplussed. “I don’t understand.”

“Yuuri!” Viktoriya says, admonishing. “I tried to come out _years_ ago. I kissed you in the middle of the rink, in front of all those cameras, and they’re still talking about what _good friends_ we are.” She throws herself backwards, splaying herself out on Yuuri’s bed, and drapes an arm over her eyes. “This is terrible.”

Yuuri tries not to, but she can’t help but laugh a little.

Viktoriya lifts her arm long enough to glare at her. “Stop laughing at me.”

Yuuri grins at her. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t laugh. You’re obviously upset about this.” She leans down onto the bed as well, carefully propping herself up on her side next to Viktoriya. “But to be fair, I do consider you a _very_ good friend.” She tries to embody some of that effortless seduction she exudes when she’s performing Eros, but her voice catches and her sultry whisper comes out more of a hoarse croak. She blushes, and tries desperately to keep her expression under control.

Viktoriya lifts her arm up again, looking at her speculatively. Yuuri starts to sweat.

“Yeah?” Viktoriya asks, and her lip is curling up. She lifts a hand up, runs it through Yuuri’s hair. “We’re friends?”

Yuuri swallows audibly. “Um. Yes. Very good friends.” She shivers as Viktoriya’s hand runs down through her hair, coming to the rest on the back of her neck.

“Is that so?” Viktoriya asks, and lifts her head just enough to press her lips against the skin of Yuuri’s throat. She runs her lips along a tendon there, feather-light.

Yuuri inhales sharply as she feels a hint of teeth. “Yes,” she says, and closes her eyes.

 

** Yuuri Katsuki Becomes the First Senior Lady to Land a Quadruple Jump in International Competition **

 

The music is swelling, the end of the program is coming up. She flashes back momentarily to landing the jump in the public practice just yesterday, how she’d fumbled the landing, what she’d done wrong. Then she puts it out of her mind. It doesn’t matter. Now is the time.

Yuuri sets up for her jumping pass, gaining speed. Her toe pick digs in, and she soars up into the air, pulling her limbs in tight. One rotation. Two rotations. Three Rotations. Four.

The impact of the landing jars her leg, the force ricocheting through her entire body, but she’s stable, she’s stable, she’s landed it, and then—

Can’t stop. Have to keep going. Have to finish the routine, have to hear what they’re saying, have to see Viktoriya’s face…

For a moment after coming to a stop in her final pose, Yuuri’s mind is completely blank. All she can hear is her blood pounding in her ears, her own gasped breaths. Every muscle in her body is burning. She stands there, chest heaving, sweat dripping down her face, gaze unfocused.

And then sound returns, and she can hear the screaming the whooping, the furious applause. The arena is absolutely filled with sound, crashing over her in wave after wave. The world snaps back into sharp focus, and her gaze follows the line of her arm, out past her fingertips, all the way to the edge of the rink. Viktoriya is there. She’s there, and she’s looking straight back at Yuuri, and she’s crying. Yuuri sees her mouth open, sees her lips form Yuuri’s name.

Without thinking about it she takes off, stroking across the ice, gaining speed, and it feels like flying. And suddenly Viktoriya is there directly in front of her, arms open and waiting, and Yuuri crashes into her. Her fingers are slipping through silvery blond hair and their foreheads are pressed together and Yuuri can feel Viktoriya’s breath on her cheek. And without even noticing it, she’s crying great heaving sobs, and now Viktoriya is dropping kisses on her cheeks and her forehead and her lips. “You did it,” she laughs, voice thick with tears of her own. “You did it. I love you. You did it.”

 

**Power Couple Of The Ice: Yuuri Katsuki and Viktoriya Nikiforova Make History**

 

Viktoriya is bored. Her apartment feels empty. She’s checked the thermostat three times but it still feels colder than it should. There’s nothing she wants to watch on television. She’s already checked her twitter mentions twice and liked every single photo on her instagram feed. Christophe told her to stop texting him because he was on a “sexy getaway with the hubby” and “Viktoriya darling, I am trying to set a mood here and you are ruining it.”

Viktoriya picks her phone up again, turns it on, sees the lack of new notifications, and sets it back down. She crosses her legs, then uncrosses them. She picks up one of the throw pillows off the couch next to her, jostling Makkachin, and puts it behind her to support her lower back. Then she decides she doesn’t like that and pulls it out again, placing it gently on top of Makkachin. He doesn’t react, already asleep again.

The door opens. Viktoriya leaps to her feet, already moving. Yuuri comes in, cheeks flushed with cold, and brushing snow out of her hair. “I’m back!” she says cheerfully, stomping her feet a little to shake the snow off. “I checked but they didn’t have that tea you like in stock yet. The manager said they’d probably get some more in on Tuesday so we should go back then. Or maybe we could order online? And your package isn’t here yet, so maybe you should check the delivery date one more time just to be sure.” She turns around from hanging up her coat, and jumps when Viktoriya is right in front of her. “Hi,” she says, a bit breathlessly.

“Hi,” Viktoriya says, and pulls her into a kiss. She breaks it a moment later to bury her head in Yuuri’s neck, inhaling deeply. “I missed you.”

Yuuri laughs. “You’re ridiculous,” she says, wrapping her arms around Viktoriya’s waist. “I was gone for an hour.”

“Worst hour of my life,” Viktoriya murmurs.

Yuuri laughs at her. “I’m sure. You should have just come with me.” She starts to pull back, and Viktoriya tightens her grip. “Viktoriya, we have to make dinner,” she says admonishingly. “Everyone is coming over, and we promised Yurio we’d try his grandfather’s piroshki recipe.”

“Yes, okay, definitely,” Viktoriya says, and kisses her again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I always appreciate feedback. Make sure to stop by [the artist's page](http://sapphicmodernity.tumblr.com/) to leave her some love as well. My tumblr is [clearancecreedwatersurvival](http://clearancecreedwatersurvival.tumblr.com/). Come hang out.


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